Behind the Lines

Ecuadors Mining Halt

Ecuadors mining industry came to a grinding halt in April, when
the Ecuadorian Constitutional Assembly passed a Mining Mandate canceling
nearly all existing mining concessions

The Mandate recalls all
concessions for which no consultation took place with nearby communities
or for which no environmental impact study was undertaken. It also
canceled concessions that were granted in natural protected
areas or which may affect water supplies. These, along with other
requirements, resulted in the cancellation of nearly 90 percent of the
concessions.

We celebrate this truly
amazing victory of right over might and believe that it will lead to an
Ecuador free of large- and medium-scale metal mining in the near
future, says Carlos Zorilla, of DECOIN (Defense and Ecological
Conservation of Intag), an environmental group that has heavily
campaigned against mining in Ecuador.

The Mandate was passed to
give the Ecuadorian government time to write new mining legislation,
which will include a national mining company, higher royalties and more
stringent environmental laws.

Representatives from several
mining companies met with Ecuadors President, Rafael Correa, to
discuss Ecuadors future mining laws. The companies welcomed
President Correas repeated statements that responsible mining will
go ahead in Ecuador, said the Toronto-based Iamgold Corporation,
one of the mining companies that met with Correa, in a written
statement.

John Haigh, manager of
investor relations for the Lakewood, Colorado-based Ascendant Copper,
which lost all of its concessions, says of the Mandate, From my
standpoint, its very discouraging.

Youve got a
country that is very pro-environment, he says. They
dont want to have any mining, they dont want to have any
large open pits, they dont want to have any small open pits.
Haigh says because of the Mandate, Ascendant has had to fire all of its
local workers. The country itself is not going to do a damn thing
to help mining, Haigh says. Well have to spend that
$100 million in Arizona or New Mexico and not Ecuador.

Canadas Carbon Threat

Logging in Canadas Boreal Forest isnt just destroying local
ecosystems, it is also imperiling the planet, according to an April
report by Greenpeace.

Logging is making
global warming worse, says Christy Ferguson, a forests campaigner
for Greenpeace Canada and co-author of the report.

The Boreal Forest, which
stretches across northern Canada from the Yukon Territory in the west to
Newfoundland and Labrador in the east, stores about 186 billion tons of
carbon  the equivalent of 27 years of carbon emissions from the
burning of fossil fuels worldwide, according the report. With the loss
of trees, this carbon, most of which is stored in the soil, is released
into the atmosphere.

Logging will also
degrade the forest in a way that will make it more vulnerable to
global warming impacts, says Ferguson, in turn making more
emissions likely.

Research shows that
when the forest is degraded ... massive amounts of greenhouse gases are
released into the atmosphere, and the forest becomes more vulnerable to
global warming impacts like fires and insect outbreaks, states the
report. In many cases, these impacts cause even more greenhouse
gases to be released, driving a vicious circle in which global warming
degrades the Boreal Forest, and Boreal Forest degradation advances
global warming. If left unchecked, this could culminate in a
catastrophic release of greenhouse gases known as the carbon
bomb.

Currently, Canadian
legislation only protects 8.1 percent of the Boreal Forest from
industrial development; 45 percent is under license to logging
companies. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on all industrial
development of the forest. If we
continue logging at the current rate, were going to see even more
and worse fires, were going to see more and worse insect
outbreaks, and that means more and worse emissions, Ferguson
says.

We certainly agree with
the concept that the Boreal is in danger, says Andrew Casey,
spokesperson for the Forest Products Association of Canada, which
represents wood, pulp and paper producers. But theres no
science to show it is logging in the Boreal that causes global
warming. Casey notes that if logging is stopped or reduced in the
Boreal, the demand for wood products will be shifted to more endangered
forests, such as the Amazon. We have to look at the Boreal in a
global context, he says.

Greenpeaces
recommendation is based on the successful outcome of negotiations over
the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia. After a moratorium on
logging there, government, industry and environmental groups negotiated
a long-term agreement which included permanently protected areas and
logging regulations to maintain the ecological integrity of the
area.

While the Canadian government
and logging industry arent supportive of Greenpeaces call
for a moratorium on logging in the Boreal Forest, Ferguson says,
The debate has gotten hotter, which is a step toward ultimate
resolution.

Safer Cosmetics at CVS

The largest U.S. drug store chain says it will move to take toxics out
of the cosmetics it sells. In a move welcomed by health and
environmental groups, CVS Pharmacy announced in May a new cosmetics
safety policy, committing the company to developing action plans
to replace ingredients of concern [potentially dangerous chemicals] in
our branded and private label products and prompting similar
action by our manufacturer partners.

Having the largest drug store
in the United States adopt a safe cosmetics policy that commits
them to removing chemicals linked to health harms from their products
and replace them with safer alternatives is a major step in
cleaning up the cosmetics industry, says Lisa Archer, national
coordinator for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a national coalition of
health and environmental groups. The Campaign, alongside Boston Common
Asset Management, a social investment firm, urged the policy change at
CVS.

CVSs move follows the
high-end grocery chain Whole Foods announcement in February that
it will now screen all personal care products on its shelves for 250
different harmful chemicals and issue a Premium Body Care
seal for products meeting a set of criteria for safety, efficacy,
environmental impact and labeling.

The Whole Foods
standard is better in terms of actually naming chemicals they dont
want on their shelves, Archer says. But Whole Foods has a
smaller market share and we hope we can move some of the bigger
retailers to make similar moves. Retailers really have the power to
shift the market in a faster manner than just the [cosmetic] companies
working alone.

People in the United States
use 12 personal care products a day on average, which expose them to 126
unique chemical ingredients, according to Archer. Many of the
ingredients currently used in personal care products are known or
thought to be carcinogens or endocrine disruptors (affecting the
hormonal system, with potentially severe reproductive and other health
effects), or to cause birth defects.

Not Ship Shape

The worlds shipping industry sailed into murky waters in February,
after a leaked United Nations study showed that the amount of
climate-changing carbon emissions produced by shipping is almost three
times higher than previously believed. The report also showed that
sulfur and soot emissions from shipping, which cause acid rain, lung
cancer and respiratory problems, will rise more than 30 percent by
2020.

The shipping industry is
exempt from many international environmental regulations and protocols,
but critics are now clamoring for more stringent standards and oversight
of the industrys carbon emissions.

Previous estimates by the
UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put carbon
emissions from shipping at 400 million tons. However, the new study,
leaked to the UK-based Guardian, estimates that annual carbon emissions
from the worlds merchant fleet have reached 1.12 billion tons,
which accounts for close to 4.5 percent of all global carbon emissions.
By comparison, emissions from the aviation industry total about 650
million tons of carbon, or about 2 percent of global carbon
emissions.

Shipping traffic is on the
rise due to increased global trade. The leaked report projected that,
left unchecked, carbon emissions from shipping will rise by another 30
percent by the year 2020, making them one of the largest single sources
of carbon dioxide emissions after cars, housing, agriculture and
industry.

In April, the International
Maritime Organization (IMO) approved some new environmental regulations
relating to sulfur and nitrogen oxide emissions, but no binding
agreements were made concerning carbon emissions. However, several
proposals were discussed and a greenhouse gas emissions working group
convened in Norway in June.

Aiding Labor Suppression

If the Mexican police are going to attack striking workers, U.S.
taxpayers shouldnt help, the United Steelworkers (USW) told the
U.S. Congress in February.

In January, Mexican federal
police and soldiers fired tear gas and pellet guns at striking miners at
the Cananea mine, a Grupo Mexico copper mine in Sonora, Mexico, and the
site of frequent worker strife [see Multinational Monitor article
Mexican Miners Rise Up: The Explosive Dispute Over
Privatization, July/Aug 2006]. Ten workers were injured. Grupo
Mexico could not be reached for comment.

USW wrote in a February
letter that these actions should disqualify Mexican security forces from
U.S. assistance. The union asked the U.S. Congress to withhold a $1.4
billion funding package for Mexicos security forces until hearings
are held to investigate Mexicos actions during the Sonora strike
and others.

The attack on the
Cananea miners is just the most recent in a series of repressive actions
by the Mexican government, wrote USW International President Leo
Gerard in a January letter to the late Representative Tom Lantos,
then-chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Representative
David Obey, chair of the House Appropriations Committee. The
CalderF3n administrations flagrant violations of workers
fundamental rights to organize and bargain, and its continuing use of
security forces to assault unarmed workers, raises serious questions
about the desirability of providing Mexico with additional security
funding.

The funding package, called
the Merida Initiative, allocates $1.4 billion to Mexico over three years
to combat the threats of drug trafficking, transnational crime and
terrorism in the Western Hemisphere, according to the U.S. State
Department. Congress has yet to approve the initiative.

Mexico cannot be
allowed to violate workers human rights with impunity under the
pretense of securing borders and combating narco-trafficking,
wrote Gerard.